The present invention relates to an ink jet recording apparatus.
With conventional ink jet recording apparatuses such as a serial dot printer, one method of ejecting ink uses a heater provided in an ink pressure chamber which generates bubbles to eject ink drops, and another method uses a piezoelectric element which generates a pressure in an ink pressure chamber to eject ink drops. Such an ink jet apparatus is disadvantageous in that foreign matter, and air often enter the holes (referred to as orifice hereinafter) in the tip of the ink jet head (referred to as head hereinafter) through which ink drops are ejected, and the ink is apt to dry around the orifices. The foreign matter and air bubbles trapped in the orifices, and dried ink are causes of improper ejection of ink drops. Therefore, this type of conventional apparatus has a cap, ink-receiving dish, and sweep blade which are provided independently of each other. The cap covers the orifices when printing is not taking place, in order to prevent the ink from drying. The ink-receiving dish covers the orifices when suction of is applied to the orifices and unprinted ink drops are ejected so as to withdraw the foreign matter, denatured (dried) ink, and air bubbles in and around the surfaces. The sweep blade sweeps the orifice surface when cleaning the orifice surface.
However, having a cap, ink-receiving dish, and sweep blade which are independent of each other is not desirable since each of these structural elements needs a drive mechanism and some space in the ink jet recording apparatus.